The World Health Organization (WHO), meeting in Geneva on Saturday, warned that the coronavirus pandemic was likely to be ‘very long’. The coronavirus has killed more than 680,000 people worldwide.
The organization’s Emergency Committee, which has met since Friday for the fourth time to reassess the pandemic, “stressed that its duration was certainly going to be very long,” the WHO said in a statement. ‘The WHO continues to estimate that the risk posed by Covid-19 is very high,’ the statement added. ‘The emergency committee’ (made up of 18 members and 12 advisers) ‘stressed the importance of a response that must be national, regional and global’ in the face of the pandemic.
The coronavirus has infected at least 17.6 million people worldwide and killed more than 680,000, according to a count made by AFP from official sources.
‘One per century’
The emergency committee called on WHO to provide all countries with pragmatic guidance on how to respond to the pandemic, ‘to reduce the risk that responses to the epidemic will weaken, in a context socio-economic pressures’. The committee also recommends that the WHO accelerate research on the still unknown points of the virus, in particular its animal origin and its possible means of propagation by animal means.
He also asks that points such as ‘the modes of transmission (of the virus), its potential mutations, immunity and correlates of protection’ be clarified.
The committee meeting, which lasted six hours, took place at WHO headquarters in Geneva, with some participants linked by video. It is scheduled to meet again in three months. ‘This pandemic is a health crisis as we see only one per century and its effects will be felt for decades to come,’ WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday.
“Many scientific questions have been resolved, many are still waiting to be resolved,” he added. “Most people on the planet can be affected, even those who do not live in hard-hit areas.”
/ ATS
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